Category Archives: Transportation

Embedding traffic lights in sidewalks to help pedestrians

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Incessant smartphone use is leading to urban adaptations:

That is why officials in the city of Augsburg became concerned when they noticed a new phenomenon: Pedestrians were so busy looking at their smartphones that they were ignoring traffic lights.

The city has attempted to solve that problem by installing new traffic lights embedded in the pavement — so that pedestrians constantly looking down at their phones won’t miss them.

“It creates a whole new level of attention,” city spokeswoman Stephanie Lermen was quoted as saying. Lermen thinks the money is wisely spent: A recent survey conducted in several European cities, including Berlin, found that almost 20 percent of pedestrians were distracted by their smartphones. Younger people are most likely to risk their safety for a quick look at their Facebook profiles or WhatsApp messages, the survey found…

But city officials say their work is justified: The idea to install such traffic lights came after a 15-year-old girl was killed by a tram. According to police reports, she was distracted by her smartphone as she crossed the tracks.

The direction of change is with the smartphone users: their safety matters and urban planners and officials must adjust.

I assume the future self-driving cars will be able to communicate with smartphones (or whatever devices we are all sporting at that point) to protect cars from the pedestrians. At that point, the cars will be far safer than the zombie or distracted or unpredictable activity of any pedestrian.

$8 billion to reroute most freight traffic around Chicago suburbs

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The railroad bottleneck in Chicago is real but a new proposal suggests a way to route much of the freight traffic around the outer edges of the region:

In the 21st century, the plan by Great Lakes Transportation Inc. is rare to the point of being unbelievable: Building an $8 billion, 278-mile-long, two-track freight railroad through northeastern Illinois…

But most of the more than 400 people who showed up Tuesday morning at a federal “scoping” hearing in Belvidere weren’t thinking about convenience to people living 50 miles to the east in the suburbs. Many wore stickers showing their opposition to the project, called the Great Lakes Basin Rail Line.

Instead, they told the U.S. Surface Transportation Board’s environmental studies staff that such a railroad would split up farms that have been owned by their families for 100 years. That it would threaten underground water supplies with pollution from spilled chemicals, would slow local ambulance crews and firefighters, would take the world’s best soil out of agricultural production, would lower their property values, could cause drainage problems on their farmland and would fill their quiet rural townships with train noise.

Great Lakes Basin Transportation Inc. is headed by former software entrepreneur Frank Patton and reportedly is supported by 14 investors. The proposed railroad is designed to give the area’s six “Class I” railroads — BNSF, Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern, CSX, Canadian National and Canadian Pacific, plus the small Wisconsin & Southern Railway — a way to send long-distance freight trains around metropolitan Chicago rather than through it.

This is still is years from becoming a reality with the number of studies that would need to be completed as well as the actual funding and construction. Yet, it will be interesting to see how the concerns of these property owners are weighed against the interests of the entire Chicago region. Many communities would be very happy with this chance to see fewer freight trains. For some reason, this reminds me of some of the property owners near O’Hare Airport who have put up a consistent fight against expansion even as such plans would benefit the entire region.

In the long run, I would assume the interests of these property owners will matter less than the funding and completion issues that come from such a massive project.

IL legislator drops tax by miles driven plan

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Following up on last week’s post, it now appears Illinois will not have a new driving tax anytime soon:

The Illinois Senate president says he will not pursue a proposal to pay for road construction by taxing motorists by the miles they drive.

John Cullerton is a Chicago Democrat. He floated the idea last week because revenue from taxes on gasoline is declining. Cars are more fuel-efficient but they still wear out roads…

Cullerton posted on social media Friday that he intended the plan — which the Executive Committee aired on Wednesday — to spark debate about more efficient ways to fund road-building.

He says he “received a lot of constructive feedback” but will not pursue his plan.

Such a move was likely unpopular but withdrawing the idea doesn’t help the state move closer to the issue: how are roads going to be maintained and improved? Few people like to pay increased costs for infrastructure but they will certainly dislike it if the roads are not in good shape or major repairs cause headaches and future borrowing down the road.

With gas at a relatively cheap point, isn’t it time to at least consider raising the gas tax?

IL lawmaker considering tax by mile proposal

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One influential Illinois legislator is looking into taxing drivers per miles driven:

A new proposal to pay for fixing Illinois’ roads could use devices to track how far Illinois drivers have traveled and tax them by the mile.

The plan from Senate President John Cullerton, a Chicago Democrat, is aimed at gasoline tax revenues that have fallen as drivers have bought more fuel-efficient cars…

Drivers, under the plan, could pick whether a device in their cars monitors their miles one of two different ways. Or they could choose to pay the 1.5-cent-per-mile tax on a base 30,000 miles traveled per year, if they have privacy concerns.

One device would track where specifically drivers go and not charge them when they travel out of state or on Illinois toll roads. The other would simply monitor the odometer reading, not tracking the rest of the information.

Illinois drivers would get a refund for gasoline tax costs paid at the pump, Cullerton said. Out-of-state drivers not registered here would pay those taxes as usual.

The article suggests this could come to a vote in a few days but I suspect it will take some time as there are a number of important details to work out. This has been considered elsewhere (see earlier posts here and here involving Oregon) but this seems like a quick move in Illinois. Gas tax revenue has dropped in Illinois in recent years.

These important details might go beyond the technical details and involve trust in politicians. Do Illinois residents trust their own government to (1) track the data properly and (2) refund gas taxes paid at the pump?

Cities will need to adapt to self-driving cars

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If self-driving cars arrive soon, cities may not be ready:

Just six percent of long-range transportation plans in major US cities are factoring the impact of autonomous cars, according to a report released in the fall by the National League of Cities. That’s a bad sign. “Even though driverless cars may be shoehorned to fit the traditional urban environment in the short term, it won’t be a long-term solution for maximizing potential benefits,” says Lili Du, an assistant professor of transportation engineering at Illinois Tech.

The Driverless Cities Project is developing a comprehensive answer, folding in urban design, landscape architecture, transportation engineering, sociology, urban networks, and planning law. (The project is a finalist for the university’s $1 million Nayar Prize for research with meaningful social impacts.) The idea is to explore current research around the country, along with the more forward-thinking planning initiatives, and fold in their own studies to create a suite of guidelines—including model urban codes that determine so much about city environments—for municipalities to incorporate into their planning.

There’s plenty to consider. For example, we don’t know how parking will work for autonomous vehicles. Should cities be building lots outside urban centers? Is parking still necessary at all? Wireless vehicle-to-vehicle communication will lets cars pack together more tightly, which raises questions about how we fit them onto our streets.

Their autonomous operation alone can obviate the need for traffic signals and road signs. That’ll go a long way toward beautifying city streets, Marshall says, but brings up other problems regarding pedestrian safety, speed limits, roadway design, and the need for and sizes of driveways and curbs. Even further, vehicle ownership and usage patterns will change, once we’re able to summon an autonomous car through an app and then shoo it away once it delivers us at our destination. Who’s going to own and operate those cars, and what will they do when not serving their owners? Park in the ‘burbs? Infinite-Uber-loop?

It sounds like there is a lot of good that could be done in helping to reverse the changes that occurred from the early to mid-1900s where cities were altered in significant ways – wider streets and smaller sidewalks, the construction of highways – to make it easier for cars to operate in the city. Of course, making some of these roadway changes doesn’t necessarily lead to a Jane Jacobs urban paradise. Take downtown Manhattan: you could reduce the size of roads and give pedestrians more space. Yet, the scale of the buildings often would not help; you can create all sorts of sidewalks but if they are shrouded in shadows from skyscrapers, is it inviting? Or, adding more pedestrian space may not necessarily lead to more lively street life if there isn’t a mix of uses to attract people. On the whole, having to emphasize cars less could be very attractive but a lot of additional work would need to be done to truly take advantage of the opportunity.

Four reasons American mass transit went awry

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John Rennie Short explains why America’s mass transit infrastructure is in such bad shape today:

The first is the early and continuing embrace of the private car as a form of urban transport. In Europe, expensive gas and restrictive land use measures kept people in dense cities, and urban growth followed along the lines of mass transit, reinforcing and consolidating their use…

Second, as cities were designed to meet the needs of the motorist, mass transit systems that had been owned by private companies were abandoned or effectively dismantled in the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s because they were losing money…

The third reason is that all infrastructure ages and needs costly maintenance and continual improvement, yet funding is often constrained…

Fourth, there is a deeper tension in the U.S., first noted by economist Kenneth Galbraith, between private affluence and public squalor.

It is difficult to overestimate the effect the car had on American social life. Many cities had thriving mass transit systems – railroads, electric streetcars – before automobiles reached the mass public. People had to live closer to where they worked. Street life could be very hectic – just remember all those horses out on the streets of major cities – but there was more interaction. Today? People often prefer driving solo in their vehicle at their own convenience. Mass transit simply didn’t look as appealing with the new option of driving on the table and governments spent lots of money to push driving rather than mass transit.

Is the insistence on driving America’s ultimate enduring response to big government? Residents may be willing to put up with being constrained in other areas but don’t you dare tell me that I can’t go where I want when I want.

Self-driving cars require better maintained roads

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Self-driving cars may have advantages but they might also require spending more on road upkeep:

Shoddy infrastructure has become a roadblock to the development of self-driving cars, vexing engineers and adding time and cost. Poor markings and uneven signage on the 3 million miles of paved roads in the United States are forcing automakers to develop more sophisticated sensors and maps to compensate, industry executives say.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently called the mundane issue of faded lane markings “crazy,” complaining they confused his semi-autonomous cars…

An estimated 65 percent of U.S. roads are in poor condition, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation, with the transportation infrastructure system rated 12th in the World Economic Forum’s 2014-2015 global competitiveness report...

To make up for roadway aberrations, carmakers and their suppliers are incorporating multiple sensors, maps and data into their cars, all of which adds cost.

 

It would be interesting to see some estimates of the additional costs to keep roads at a level where self-driving cars can safely operate. Does the money saved in less congestion on the roads and fewer traffic accidents outweigh the new maintenance costs?

On the other hand, having to do more frequent construction may not affect drivers as much if all cars are self-driving. Since such vehicles are supposed to improve traffic flow, construction is something drivers wouldn’t have to handle – their cars would do it for them. And, if we have driverless cars, can we have driverless maintenance vehicles?

Study suggests Chicago has too much apartment parking

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A new study finds there are too many parking spots for Chicago apartments:

A single underground parking space can cost $37,000 or more to build, Smith said. Developers in Chicago are generally required to build one parking space for every apartment unit, which has led to a gap between supply and demand, and a fixed cost that is passed on to renters, he said…

As part of its yearlong study, Smith and two colleagues visited 40 residential parking facilities in the middle of the night last summer to survey occupancy. The properties ran the gamut from affordable to luxury rental apartments in Chicago and suburban Cook County and included some older buildings that predated the parking requirements ordinance. The research team discovered lots of open spaces.

On average, the buildings supplied .61 parking spaces for every unit, but used only .34 spaces per unit. Adjusted for occupancy — vacant apartments that don’t need parking — the lots were about two-thirds full, according to the report…

In the suburbs, where public transit is less accessible and car travel is a way of life, municipalities often require developers to provide more than one parking space per apartment unit. The study found the parking oversupply extends to the suburbs as well.

As Americans drove more – even in cities – local officials tried to keep up by building roads and highways, planning communities around automobiles, and writing regulations that provided plenty of parking. All those giant parking lots outside of big box stores or shopping malls are the result of planning for once-a-year parking needs while the rest of the year those lots sit empty, look ugly, and contribute to water runoff issues.

But, what happens if driving habits change? Or, planning as a field changes from emphasizing cars to greener options? As the article notes, Chicago has changed regulations for new apartment developments near mass transit. This seems like a win-win for developers: they have to devote less space for parking which can then go toward units and this may even drive up the price of the parking they do build because there is a tighter supply. At the same time, I wonder if this appeals to certain urban homeowners – particularly younger residents rather than all those Baby Boomers supposedly moving to cities – and not others.

Disapproval of a boyfriend who lives in a van/tiny house?

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One letter writer to Dear Prudence thinks that her boyfriend’s life in “a pretty impressive tiny house” may not be approved by her loved ones:

Q. Man with a van: I met a guy online, and we’re far enough along that I’ve told some family and friends, but they haven’t met him yet. Here’s the rub: He is currently living in a van, which he has turned into a pretty impressive tiny house. He’s doing it for thoughtful and responsible reasons. I think it’s cool, but I know people in my life are going to find it off-putting and judge him negatively. I want them to meet him first before I explain this. I also don’t want him to know I’m overthinking this and freak him out about meeting people in my life. Should I get it over with and tell them?

A: I think this is an unnecessary burden you are taking on yourself. Let him tell people. He can explain his thoughtful and responsible reasons better than anyone else. If your friends have questions or politely worded judgments for you afterward, you can handle them as they come, but don’t feel responsible for managing other people’s perceptions of your boyfriend’s living situation. What he does is unusual, and your friends might have questions, and that’s fine. If you come across as desperate to justify his choices, you’ll mostly just come across as desperate.

Prudence suggests the letter writer should take it easy and let the boyfriend explain things. But, this sort of sidesteps the possible issues:

  1. Is the van/tiny house not really that nice? Or, is it simply hard to tell from the outside how nice it is?
  2. Perhaps the family members and friends would see living in a van or vehicle as a negative consequence related to not having a good job or education. If so, is the issue really not the van but rather what it might signify?
  3. I wonder if some people simply wouldn’t react well to tiny houses. They may not understand how or why someone wants such a space. Perhaps they view such housing as transitory, not a long-term solution.

My guess is the issue is #2: living in your van is not a positive status symbol. But, since it is a tiny house, perhaps the couple can throw a party at the van/tiny house to introduce everyone…

The furor over traffic fatalities – in the early 1900s

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With talk about the first Google self-driving car crash, one writer reminds us of earlier discussions about cars and accidents:

There’s some precedent for all this, of course. It’s not as though the car as we know it today was thwarted by human deaths. The first recorded traffic fatality in the United States occurred in 1899, in New York City, when a man stepping off a trolley was struck by a taxi.

The three decades that followed were chaotic and deadly. Scholars and justices debated whether the automobile was, perhaps, inherently evil. By the 1920s, cars were causing so many deaths that people in cities like New York and Detroit began throwing parades in an attempt to underscore the need for traffic safety. Tow trucks would haul smashed, totaled vehicles along the course of the parade. From The Detroit News:

“Some wrecks featured mannequin drivers dressed as Satan and bloody corpses as passengers. Children crippled from accidents rode in the back of open cars waving to other children watching from sidewalks. Washington, D.C., and New York City held parades including 10,000 children dressed as ghosts, representing each a death that year. They were followed by grieving young mothers who wore white or gold stars to indicate they’d lost a child.”

Eventually, traffic laws and other safety features—stop lights, brightly painted lanes, speed limits—were standardized. And car-safety technology improved, too. Vehicles got shatterproof windshields, turn signals, parking brakes, and eventually seat belts and airbags. In 1970, about 60,000 people died each year on American roads. By 2013, the number of annual traffic fatalities had been cut almost in half.

I am usually amazed when I look back at historical and sociological work about the major changes in society due to and in response to the car. Even with all the safety implications – tens of thousands of deaths each year – Americans went all in for the car, changing our streets, residential patterns, leisure activities, homes, and numerous other areas.

There are also some similarities with the advent of railroad technology in the mid-1800s where it took some time to develop reliable safety devices. In Forging Industrial Policy, sociologist Frank Dobbin describes the multitude of safety issues in Britain where railroads were allowed a lot of latitude until too many people were dying.